Streetsblog New York Cityhttp://www.streetsblog.org
Covering the New York City livable streets movementTue, 03 Mar 2015 22:21:52 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.5No Easy Answers at City Council Hearing on Trucks and Bike/Ped Safetyhttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/no-easy-answers-at-city-council-hearing-on-trucks-and-bikeped-safety/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/no-easy-answers-at-city-council-hearing-on-trucks-and-bikeped-safety/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:52:06 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340729[...]]]>Trucks pose an outsize danger on New York City streets. This afternoon, elected officials, agency staff, union representatives, and advocates tackled the issue at a City Council transportation committee hearing.

Trucks comprise 3.6 percent of New York City’s 2 million vehicle registrations, said DOT Deputy Commissioner Ryan Russo, and account for 7 percent of the city’s traffic.

While professional truck drivers usually have a better safety record than the average driver per mile, trucks are three times more likely to be involved in a pedestrian death than any other type of vehicle, according to DOT. Last year, truck drivers struck and killed 17 people who were walking or biking, comprising 11 percent of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities. That’s down slightly from the three previous years, when an average of 20 people walking or biking were killed in truck crashes annually, comprising 13 percent of pedestrian and cyclist deaths.

One of the victims last year was killed by a truck driver on Canal Street, one of the most dangerous streets in the city. Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents the area, asked DOT if it would remove Canal Street’s truck route designation. Russo said that trucks will need to use some of Manhattan’s streets, including Canal, as through routes. “Do you have a street that would serve as an alternative?” he asked Chin. “We don’t think that designation or de-designation [of truck routes] is a pedestrian or bicyclist safety strategy.”

Instead, Russo said DOT is looking to make changes to Canal and Bowery, at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge. Since 2009, 19 pedestrians and nine cyclists have been injured there, and one pedestrian has been killed, according to DOT data.

Chin has introduced a bill that would require DOT to study the impact of the region’s tolling system on truck traffic and related cyclist and pedestrian fatalities every five years. “What we can do is look back at the crashes a little more closely, especially the fatal ones, and look at origin and destination issues,” Russo said. “Whether there was a market incentive for them to be somewhere they otherwise wouldn’t be, would be interesting.”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that there’s a market incentive,” said Council Member Mark Weprin, a supporter of the Move NY toll reform proposal.

NYPD interest in traffic enforcement, or lack thereof, came up twice at today’s hearing, although no police representative testified.

Council Member David Greenfield complained of trucks parked illegally overnight in his district, and asked DOT to install signs for the benefit of both drivers and law enforcement. “Police officers are not as aware of the regulation as you and I are,” Greenfield said. “Truck parking enforcement is not at the top of their list, unfortunately.”

A similar request came from Council Member Paul Vallone, who introduced legislation in response to constituent complaints about illegal truck traffic on local streets. NYPD incorrectly claims it can’t enforce the law unless a sign is present, Vallone said. Instead of pushing precincts to stop with the excuses, his bill would require DOT to install signs on the ten blocks in each community district that have the most illegal truck traffic. DOT objected, saying that while the agency receives complaints about illegal truck traffic, it’s nearly impossible to accurately determine the 10 blocks that actually bear the brunt of the problem — and there’s no guarantee that more signs will do anything to fix it.

DOT instead suggested adding speed humps or reversing the direction of some local streets to deter illegal truck traffic in Vallone’s district, which Council Member Antonio Reynoso said had worked well on a problematic street in his district.

Ultimately, reducing the number of trucks on the road can help reduce the impact of truck traffic on neighborhoods. At the hearing, the Cross Harbor Rail Tunnel, the multi-billion dollar freight connection between New Jersey and Long Island, received endorsements from Weprin and Borough President Gale Brewer.

Telematics devices, which record information on speed, location, and braking patterns, have already been installed on 16,000 vehicles in the city’s 27,000-vehicle fleet, said Keith Kerman, Chief Fleet Officer at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. He added that side guards, which prevent people from being dragged under the rear wheels of large vehicles, will be installed on “at least” 240 vehicles this year as part of a pilot program. DCAS has also been in touch with companies, universities, utilities, and other levels of government that are interested in adding side guards to their trucks.

Angel Martinez, a business agent and organizer with Teamsters Local 812, which represents beverage industry drivers, said that while drivers often worry about making turns through crowded crosswalks, the Right-of-Way Law that has attracted ire from TWU Local 100 hasn’t been a concern for members of his union.

“At the end of the day, no one jumps in the truck planning to hurt someone,” Martinez said. ”We care about safety too. We have families in this city, we raise children, and the Teamsters are here to support Vision Zero.”

Council Member Mark Levine has launched a petition calling on NYC DOT and the MTA to extend bus lanes on 125th Street west of Lenox Avenue. Select Bus Service on 125th was originally envisioned with river-to-river dedicated bus lanes, but neighborhood power brokers got the city to scale it back. The SBS route debuted last year with a bus lane east of Lenox

In January, DOT and the MTA reported that on the section of 125th Street with bus lanes, SBS is running 32 to 34 percent faster than the service it replaced, while local routes the M100 and Bx15 run 7 to 20 percent faster.

125th Street is a vital artery for all uptown, and tens of thousands of local residents rely on bus travel on the M100, M101, Bx15, M60 and M104 lines each and every day.

Since May, 2014 bus riders on 125th Street have benefited from a bus-only lane east of Lenox Avenue only. Those traveling along this stretch have enjoyed bus speeds as much as 30 percent faster than before the lane was installed. GPS data from taxis show that cars traveling east of Lenox Avenue are also moving faster.

West of Lenox ave is a very different story. Buses on this stretch creep along at little more than 3 miles per hours on average — barely as fast as walking speed.

There are bus-only lanes in wealthier parts of Manhattan, like the Upper East Side and Midtown. Why not along the whole length of 125th Street?

It is time to give Central and West Harlem the benefit of faster service on the M100, M101, Bx15, M60 and M104 lines by extending the 125th Street bus-only lane west to at least Amsterdam Avenue.

March is a special month on Streetsblog. It’s the time when the nation’s worst downtown parking scars face off head-to-head for the shame of winning the “golden crater” — and the local publicity bonanza that comes with it. For the third year running, we’re asking you to help seed the bracket in our Parking Madness tournament by sending in photos of the sorriest wastes of urban space you can find.

What makes for a good entry? We’re looking for downtown parking craters — expanses of urban land where there’s no longer space for people, just a sea of car storage — in North American cities. Craters that have already competed in Parking Madness tournaments are ineligible — please check the brackets from 2013 and 2014 before submitting.

To enter, send us a photo of the crater and a link to an aerial map (not just the link, please), as well as a description of why your crater deserves to win. You can submit your entry in the comments or email angie [at] streetsblog [dot] org.

Thanks for participating — looking forward to a new round of spectacular eyesores!

You have to feel sorry for the three — three! — New York Post reporters stuck with attacking Mayor de Blasio for NYPD enforcement of the speed limit. It’s a story package so fatuous it could only have come from the Post editorial braintrust.

What else could explain the manufactured fury over last November’s uptick in summonses, when each precinct ticketed an average of six speeding drivers a day, up from three. Or the sob story of an ambulette fleet owner who freely acknowledges that his employees ignore the speed limit to such an extent that the fines are hurting his bottom line.

The most ill-conceived react quotes come from bridge painter Dino Ioannou, who the Post says was cited for driving 29 miles per hour on a Grand Central Parkway service road. Ioannou has two children, the Post says, and for good measure includes a quote confirming same.

“They’ve been pulling everybody over since the day [the law] went into effect,” he said. “It’s more than an inconvenience. I have two kids. That money could have went toward diapers.”

Post editors and reporters should know that those who led the fight to get the NYC speed limit lowered to 25 mph were people who lost their own children to reckless drivers. Speeding is the leading cause of New York City traffic deaths. Using kids to excuse someone from being penalized for speeding is more than insensitive, it also disregards the reason speed enforcement is important in the first place.

Of course, Mayor de Blasio should not have pledged to “go easy” on speeding drivers. But hammering the mayor for making streets safer only makes the Post look silly.

Imagine how horrible New York City would be if police handed out tickets to everyone driving 29 miles per hour. A city where road rage has no place and children and seniors walk the streets without constant risk of death. This is the nightmare scenario keeping the editors of the New York Post awake at night.

Scenes like the one above — enormous pieces of land devoted to half-empty parking lots — are ubiquitous throughout the United States. And that’s no accident.

Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns was looking over some 1954 guidance from the American Planning Association. Today, most planners would recognize it as terribly destructive, but it still holds sway to a remarkable degree.

Here is Marohn’s take on the 60-year-old advice that made so much of America a car-dependent mess:

It’s clear already by 1954 that planners know more than developers and must righteously defend the public good.

The shopper wants a space he can find easily, with a minimum of difficulty in moving around the parking area, and one that is located near the store or store group in which he is going to shop. The fault is sometimes with the developers who have underestimated the need for parking space or found the land too valuable to be devoted to parking.

Those greedy developers! How terrible of them to think of things like the value of land. It’s so sad that, even then, planners seemed to think that convenient parking and not land values would determine the future prosperity of a place.

Can you have too much parking?

We know of no existing center that has too much parking. Some parking spaces it is true are not economically used, due to their distant location from the stores. The poorly located spaces would be used more frequently if they were more conveniently located.

Most planners I meet today get how messed up our approach to parking is and are working to change it in their cities. Most zoners I meet would read this technical paper and seek to apply its findings in rote form to their community, not realizing (or perhaps not caring even if they did) that it is over 60 years old.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Mobilizing the Region says Connecticut is uniquely positioned to implement congestion pricing on its highways, if leaders will only consider it. Streets.mn reports that Minneapolis is getting its first “woonerf.” And Peninsula Transportation Alternatives critiques the idea that Palo Alto should cap office development to address its parking and congestion problems.

]]>http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/03/todays-headlines-2080/feed/14No Word on Whether Trucker Who Killed Mathieu Lefevre Will Keep Licensehttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/no-word-on-whether-trucker-who-killed-mathieu-lefevre-will-keep-license/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/no-word-on-whether-trucker-who-killed-mathieu-lefevre-will-keep-license/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 21:52:47 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340629[...]]]>More than three years after the crash, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles held a hearing today to determine whether to take action against the truck driver who killed cyclist Mathieu Lefevre. But Lefevre’s family will have to wait on a DMV decision.

Lefevre, 30, was killed just after midnight on October 19, 2011, while riding his bike on Morgan Avenue in Brooklyn. As Lefevre approached the intersection of Morgan and Meserole Street, Leonardo Degianni, who was driving a 28-ton crane truck and traveling in the same direction as Lefevre, ran over Lefevre while turning right. Degianni did not stop at the scene, and was identified as the driver after police found the truck parked a block away.

It took a lawsuit and a lot of well-earnednegative publicity for NYPD to share information about the crash with Lefevre’s family. NYPD concluded Degianni was unaware he struck Lefevre based on video of the crash. Detective Gerard Sheehan, the crash investigator assigned to the case, also apportioned some blame to Lefevre in his report. Though Degianni did not signal before turning and Lefevre was riding legally, Sheehan said Lefevre “should not have been passing on the right side.”

Lefevre’s family asked Charles Hynes, then the Brooklyn district attorney, to review the case, but Hynes declined to press charges. Degianni was eventually ticketed for failing to signal and careless driving, but the DMV threw out the tickets.

At this morning’s “safety hearing,” DMV administrative law judge Marc Berger heard testimony from Sheehan, who basically repeated the conclusions contained in the NYPD crash report. Berger also reviewed video of the crash, and accepted photos of the scene as evidence.

Berger questioned Sheehan on key details, such as the number and position of the mirrors on the truck, and whether in Sheehan’s opinion Degianni should have known he hit a person on a bicycle. Sheehan at one point indicated he believed Degianni should have seen Lefevre, had he used his mirrors properly, but said police could not determine if Degianni had passed Lefevre prior to the collision. Though the investigation found Degianni made contact with Lefevre on the driver’s side of the truck, Sheehan said drivers of large vehicles often say they didn’t detect running someone over.

First, the DMV is supposed to convene “safety hearings,” like the one held today, within a year of a crash. But DMV doesn’t hold hearings for all fatal crashes, and many are delayed. At one point Detective Sheehan remarked that it had been three-and-a-half years since he’d seen the truck that Degianni was driving, so he didn’t remember exactly what it looked like. This kind of time lag can hinder the investigative process, as memories fade and investigators move to other jobs.

Berger came prepared for this hearing, with notes on the crash and Google images of the scene. But he didn’t know the DMV had tossed Degianni’s tickets, or why, until Sheehan told him. According to Sheehan, a DMV judge dismissed tickets issued to Degianni because some involved parties didn’t show up for the hearing.

Drivers can represent themselves or bring attorneys to safety hearings, but deceased victims can’t speak for themselves, and no one may testify on their behalf. The Lefevre’s attorney, Steve Vaccaro, was permitted to question and clarify some of Sheehan’s conclusions, but only because Berger allowed him to do so. Erika Lefevre, Mathieu’s mother, was not allowed to speak until the hearing was officially adjourned. Her testimony will not be factored into the DMV’s decision, and there is no record of it. Degianni, who declined to testify, and his attorney left the room before Lefevre read her statement.

Degianni’s attorney repeatedly noted that his client was not charged or convicted with a crime. This tactic exploits a justice system that fails to penalize drivers for killing people and then leaves victims’ loved ones to look to DMV as the last hope for accountability.

]]>http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/no-word-on-whether-trucker-who-killed-mathieu-lefevre-will-keep-license/feed/4How the Lure of Spending Keeps Dumb Highway Projects Alivehttp://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/how-the-lure-of-spending-keeps-dumb-highway-projects-alive/
http://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/how-the-lure-of-spending-keeps-dumb-highway-projects-alive/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 21:25:40 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340661[...]]]>Decades ago, Ohio officials drew a line on a map — the Eastern Corridor, a highway for commuters living in Cincinnati’s eastern suburbs. No matter how much time has passed and how little sense it makes to build that highway today, that line can still seem like destiny.

This is the message from the village of Newtown about the Ohio Department of Transportation’s $1.4 billion Eastern Corridor highway plan. Image: Village of Newtown

The project lives on anyway. Last week, it seemed like state legislators were poised to reject the highway, but the thought of turning down a big construction project — no matter how wasteful and unwanted — was too much for some lawmakers to bear. The Eastern Corridor remains a looming possibility, a case study in how highway projects can develop a nearly unstoppable political momentum.

The outcry against the Easter Corridor has been growing since the moment ODOT told the public what it wanted to build. Along almost every section of the planned road, residents, neighborhoods, and whole towns tried to stop the project.

The most fiercely opposed sections involve rerouting State Route 32 through Newtown and Mariemont — two small, relatively affluent inner-ring suburbs. The road would cut through the heart of tiny Newtown, where the leadership is adamantly opposed, saying it will destroy the town’s business center. In Mariemont, it would ruin a park referred to as the South 80.

The Eastern Corridor also calls for a poorly-conceived rail line, expected to cost as much as $600 million and draw as few as 3,000 daily riders. The region’s rail advocates oppose it, calling it a waste of money.

Even farther away suburbs are not exactly thrilled about the highway. Andersen Township Trustee Russell Jackson told the Cincinnati Enquirer that “nobody in the local communities really sees this incredible benefit to building this thing.”

There are pockets of support for the project, including rural Clermont County, but overall, public opinion against the Eastern Corridor appears to be strong enough to sink it. Jason Williams at the Enquirer wondered last week if it was “on life support.”

Republican State Representative Tom Brinkman, elected by an eastern district of Cincinnati that will be affected by the road, attempted to put the whole thing to rest with legislation that would ban state money from going toward the Eastern Corridor. It was both a principled and rational political stance. After all, Brinkman prides himself on his fiscal conservatism, and the people who voted for him hate the project. ”I am representing constituents who say, ‘We don’t want to tear down our communities,’” he told the Enquirer.

Traffic volumes on State Route 32 have been dropping, according to the Village of Newtown.

But the Eastern Corridor still has one thing going for it that all highway projects do: the promise of a lot of spending. Democratic State Representative Denise Driehaus, who represents a different part of Cincinnati, said at a finance committee meeting last week that she hated the idea of southwest Ohio “losing” money.

The fear of missing out on highway money prevailed, and the project staggers on. The southwest Ohio delegation agreed to give the state of Ohio until March 31 to decide whether to continue the project — and if ODOT decides to kill it, the money will be reserved for that part of the state.

The episode is a testament to the power wielded by ODOT: the power of the purse. Not only does ODOT have the final say over whether the highway gets built, but elected officials aren’t even willing to challenge the agency if it means “losing money” for their area.

Making matters worse is that ODOT is effectively broke. Ohio hasn’t raised its gas tax in 10 years and has no money to spare on transportation, yet state officials always manage to spend huge sums on highway projects.

In order to plug Ohio DOT’s budget gap, Governor John Kasich sold state lawmakers on bonding $1.5 billion against future turnpike revenues [PDF]. At the express demand of northern Ohio lawmakers, all of that money was reserved for their part of the state. And because ODOT still sees itself first and foremost as a highway builder, all of it will be pumped into new highway capacity, even though northern Ohio is losing population.

Meanwhile, Ohio continues to scandalously shortchange transit, with the state committing just $8.3 million per year, or less than a dollar per resident per year. The additional $1 million the state recently added to its transit budget amounts to 1/1,400 the cost of the Eastern Corridor.

]]>http://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/how-the-lure-of-spending-keeps-dumb-highway-projects-alive/feed/0Rory Lancman Worried NYPD Charging Too Many Drivers for Injuring Peoplehttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/rory-lancman-worried-nypd-charging-too-many-drivers-for-injuring-people/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/rory-lancman-worried-nypd-charging-too-many-drivers-for-injuring-people/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 20:50:03 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340631[...]]]>This is pretty rich. In a city where hundreds of people get hurt by drivers who fail to yield each month, City Council Member Rory Lancman is concerned that police are “overapplying” the new Right of Way Law, which has been used all of 20 times since August.

Rory Lancman

In a February 17 letter to NYPD traffic chief Thomas Chan [PDF], Lancman asked how police determine whether to file misdemeanor charges or issue a civil penalty under the new law, and how they are trained to make that call:

Clearly the failure to yield alone is insufficient to support a charge under the law unless the “failure to yield and/or physical injury” was “caused by the driver’s failure to exercise due care.”

As it happens, Bill de Blasio touched on this subject in his testimony to the State Senate last week. Here’s his explanation of how NYPD applies the “due care” standard — basically, if officers determine that the crash could have been avoided, they will file charges:

Senator, the law that was passed by the City Council, which I signed, makes clear that when an individual fails to yield to pedestrians where they should — the pedestrian has the walk sign and they’re crossing the street and there’s still a crash, and in this case, what the law dictates is, if there is serious injury or fatality and if the officers on the scene determine that it was an avoidable injury or fatality, they are obligated to pursue an arrest. If the officers determine that it was unavoidable, meaning something happened that no driver could have possibly foreseen or responded to in time, they have the option of giving a summons… If the officer believes it was 100 percent avoidable, that is an arrest situation.

Officers with the Collision Investigation Squad are trained to determine whether a driver should have avoided a crash. Only about 20 investigators work at CIS — not enough to handle all of the failure-to-yield collisions in the city. Last October, Chan told Streetsblog that NYPD is looking to train precinct cops how to enforce the new law as well, and that the department is being very deliberate about implementing a clear standard:

Right now, it’s running through the course of channels, the legal bureau within the police department. And then ultimately, we will touch base also with the DA’s offices, because again, we want to make sure that we get it out there, and we get it out there correctly, because it’s a very important law that will make an impact out there. Again, with 35,000 [police officers], we don’t want to get variations, different interpretations, and that’s part of why it’s important for us to make sure we get our people on board and get it done correctly.

Lancman, it should be noted, voted for the Right of Way Law. Now that the law is being enforced, we’re seeing how deeply the commitment to protect people with the right of way runs among the city’s lawmakers.

]]>http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/rory-lancman-worried-nypd-charging-too-many-drivers-for-injuring-people/feed/5This Week: Lincoln Square Bow-tie Vote, Vision Zero Budgethttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/this-week-lincoln-square-bow-tie-vote-vision-zero-in-the-budget/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/03/02/this-week-lincoln-square-bow-tie-vote-vision-zero-in-the-budget/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:22:00 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340624[...]]]>There’s a key vote on DOT’s proposed improvements for the Lincoln Square bow-tie, including a stronger southbound bike link between the Upper West Side and Midtown, at Manhattan Community Board 7 on Tuesday. And on Thursday, the City Council has an opportunity to vet the de Blasio administration’s budget for street safety projects at a transportation committee hearing.

Tuesday: Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg will discuss progress on Vision Zero and the challenges that remain at a breakfast forum hosted by the Transportation Research Forum’s New York chapter. Registration required. 8:00 a.m. [corrected]

More Tuesday:Manhattan Community Board 7 will vote on proposed street safety improvements near the Lincoln Square bow-tie. The project cleared the transportation committee but nothing is ever certain at CB 7. 6:30 p.m.

There’s an interesting conversation happening in urbanism circles about how to make transit financially sustainable, going back to a piece in CityLab last June from University of Minnesota professor David Levinson. Levinson made the case for running transit like a public utility, not a government agency.

There’s one thing that’s largely missing from these discussions, argues Cap’n Transit, and it’s a big one: Transit isn’t operating on a level playing field as long as roads and parking receive such huge subsidies. Glossing over the importance of this disparity is what he calls “transportation myopia”:

Transportation myopia: the condition of seeing transit as a self-contained system rather than as an option in competition with private cars and other modes, and of seeing transit as an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.

Levinson himself acknowledges that transit was “hugely profitable” until competition from publicly funded roads and parking took away their ridership. And he acknowledges in his Way #2 that this could be reversed by charging the full cost for those roads and parking facilities. This is essentially the Magic Formula for Transit Ridership described by Michael Kemp back in 1973. And that’s really all you need.

What we need to talk about is how to get full cost pricing for roads, including potential challenges and ways to overcome them. But for some reason Levinson doesn’t talk about any of that, he just goes on to talk about smart cards and land value capture and bond markets.

Elsewhere on the Network today: BikeWalkLee shares an article indicating that Florida courts have pretty much given hit-and-run drivers a get-out-of-jail-free card. The Political Environment reports that Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker says he would “totally privatize” transportation. And Street Smart explains why a traditional street grid distributes traffic better than a highway.

Here’s some eye candy for the weekend — a map of Citi Bike’s expansion into northern Brooklyn.

This map was submitted to Community Board 1 and obtained by the Brooklyn Paper. There are 53 stations planned for Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Unlike the Citi Bike phase two expansion areas in Manhattan and Queens, which are starting from scratch, these station locations were determined during the initial bike-share siting process, prior to the 2013 launch. Basically, this is where stations in these neighborhoods were supposed to go before the program was beset by Hurricane Sandy and software problems.

It looks like about half the stations will be on sidewalks. While siting guidelines generally rule out sidewalk locations that put a squeeze on pedestrian traffic, it would be better if decisions weren’t filtered through the parking preservation board.

Regardless, after a two year wait this map is another sign that the Citi Bike expansion is happening. These stations are expected to come online sometime in 2015.

Shelby Street in Indianapolis is a model for that city’s two latest protected bike lane projects.

Michael Andersen blogs for The Green Lane Project, a PeopleForBikes program that helps U.S. cities build better bike lanes to create low-stress streets.

Spring is three weeks away, and that means it’s time for one of American cities’ newest rituals: announcing the year’s protected bike lane construction plans.

Every few days over the last month, another U.S. city has released plans or announced progress in building protected lanes. Even more excitingly, many are in downtown and commercial areas, which tend to have the highest latent demand for biking. Let’s take a scan from east to west of the projects that popped onto our radar in February alone, to be built in 2015 or 2016:

Boston is “heading toward” a firm plan for protected lanes on the crucial Commonwealth Avenue artery between Boston University Bridge and Brighton, Deputy Transportation Commissioner Jim Gillooly said February 9. In column the day before, the Boston Globe’s Derrick Jackson endorsed the concept on the strength of a trip to Seattle, where he rode a Pronto! Bike Share bicycle down the 2nd Avenue bike lane.

“I did something here I am scared to death to do in Boston,” Jackson wrote. “I bicycled on a weekday in the city’s most bustling business district.”

New York City is on track to upgrade several blocks of Columbus Avenue near Lincoln Square with greater protection, improving connections to the Ninth Avenue protected bike lane in Midtown, after a February 10 thumbs-up from the local community board.

Columbus, Ohio, said February 2 that a 1.4-mile bidirectional protected lane on Summit near the Ohio State University campus is “just the beginning” of plans for biking improvements, thanks to advocacy group Yay Bikes and a receptive city staff.

Detroit is installing southeast Michigan’s first protected lanes this year on a “very short segment” of East Jefferson. Advocacy group Detroit Greenways says it’s “precedent setting and could serve as a model for all of Detroit’s major spoke roads.”

Minneapolis announced February 26 that it’s planning to add one-way protected bike lanes on 32 blocks of E. 26th and 28th streets. The projects will repurpose general travel lanes or remove peak-hour parking from the streets. This is a particularly important step for the city because the routes run parallel to the celebrated Midtown Greenway off-street path, meaning the city is working to add comfortable bike routes that connect to its important commercial destinations instead of just running nearby them.

Houston began painting its first protected bike lane on February 8, a 10-block bidirectional track on Lamar Street downtown that’ll connect two existing off-road paths to one another.

Denver started to formally tackle its proposal for protected bike lanes on Broadway, the crucial cross-cutting street that runs north and south through downtown, the Denver Post reported February 25. “Anything that increases traffic and access to the area is helpful for us economically,” Sweet Action Ice Cream owner Chia Basinger told the newspaper, explaining his support for the proposal.

San Francisco is adding concrete islands that will physically protect bike lanes on Oak and Fell streets, Streetsblog SF reported February 20.

Klamath Falls, Oregon, is weighing its first protected bike lane on Oregon Avenue between Moore Park and downtown, with financial support from the Sky Lakes Wellness Center.

On February 11, the local Herald and News newspaper interviewed the Wellness Center’s Katherine Jochim Pope: “While the potential health benefits are exciting, arguments in favor of protected bike lanes seem stronger for economic improvement and safety, Pope said.”

And Seattle announced in a February 26 open house that protected bike lanes or a dedicated bus lane are both options on Rainier Avenue, one of the main commercial corridors of the city’s southern neighborhoods. Who knows — maybe that Boston Globe columnist will be able to check out Rainier Valley on his next trip west.

Which precincts stepped up speeding enforcement the most, and which ones lagged behind? Transportation Alternatives breaks down the numbers by borough command.

In the year since Mayor Bill de Blasio promised stepped-up traffic enforcement under Vision Zero, NYPD has moved in the right direction, according to a new report from Transportation Alternatives [PDF]. At the same time, enforcement varies dramatically from precinct to precinct, weakening overall deterrence.

TA looked at data from last year and 2013, comparing each precinct’s change in speeding and failure-to-yield tickets with the change in injuries to cyclists and pedestrians.

Some precincts rose to the top:

The 70th Precinct, covering parts of Kensington, Ditmas Park, and Midwood, increased speeding and failure-to-yield enforcement by 243 percent — that’s 310 additional speeding summonses and 832 more failure-to-yield tickets more than 2013. At the same time, there were 33 fewer cyclist and pedestrian injuries within its borders.

Manhattan South, which covers all precincts below 59th Street, remains a laggard on speeding enforcement. But it did issue 747 more speeding tickets and 2,312 more failure-to-yield tickets last year than in 2013 — and had 233 fewer bicyclist and pedestrian injuries.

Other precincts had lackluster enforcement and poor safety results:

The 94th Precinct, covering Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s north side, actually issued fewer speeding tickets last year than it did in 2013, while bicycle and pedestrian injuries rose five percent.

In the Rockaways, the 100th Precinct wrote fewer than one failure-to-yield summons per week last year, as cyclist and pedestrian injuries increased 11 percent over 2013.

“The greatest deterrent to the NYPD’s success in reaching Vision Zero is citywide inconsistency,” the report says. Precincts right next to each other often have wildly different levels of enforcement, giving drivers the impression that any ticket they receive is just “bad luck” and not a consistent crackdown on dangerous behavior. “Inconsistency undermines any positive deterrent effects of enforcement,” TA says. “Every violation that goes unenforced is implicit encouragement for drivers to commit the violation again.”

The report recommends focusing enforcement on the most dangerous violations, like speeding and failure-to-yield, and on arterial streets, which comprise just 15 percent of the city’s road network but account for more than half of all cyclist and pedestrian fatalities.

Right now, it’s impossible for the public to track which streets are the focus of enforcement efforts. Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg says she has spoken with Police Commissioner Bill Bratton about upgrading to geo-tagged enforcement data, which many council members and open government experts want to see as well. In its report, TA also calls for more detailed enforcement information in standard formats that allow for rapid data analysis.

Crash data posted online should also include information on causes of injury, the severity of injuries, and whether the Collision Investigation Squad was called to the scene, TA says.

The report recommends including the stories of traffic violence victims in a comprehensive traffic enforcement component of the Police Academy curriculum. It also suggests using enforcement of the Right-of-Way Law as a metric at NYPD’s TrafficStat meetings, where executive officers from each precinct detail their traffic enforcement progress.

“Simply put, traffic enforcement works,” the report concludes. “Drivers who receive a summons are less likely to kill or seriously injure someone in the future. This is why the NYPD is critical to achieving Vision Zero.”

Parking at the edge of a crosswalk hinders visibility but is condoned under city traffic rules. Photos: Brad Aaron

We’ve reported before how certain New York City parking rules are designed to cram a little more free car storage onto the street at the expense of pedestrian safety. In 2009, DOT removed parking restrictions on unmarked crosswalks at T intersections, and the city allows drivers with disability permits to block curb ramps that were intended to help pedestrians with disabilities cross the street.

Here’s another example of how the city prioritizes parking over life and limb. This photo shows Seaman Avenue in Inwood where it intersects with Isham Street at the entrance to Inwood Hill Park. For at least five days this SUV was parked right at the edge of this crosswalk, blocking sight lines for pedestrians as well as drivers turning right from Seaman onto Isham.

Parking right up against the crosswalk is dangerous enough that some states and cities, including New Jersey and Portland, forbid it. Drivers hurt and kill thousands of people in New York City crosswalks every year, and most victims are crossing with the signal. Poor visibility at intersections contributes to the problem, but NYC law makes it perfectly legal to obstruct sight lines with parked cars.

A parking rule fix would daylight intersections citywide, making motorists and pedestrians more visible to each other.

NACTO guidelines suggest 20 to 25 feet of clearance around crosswalks. New York City law, however, only prohibits parking within a crosswalk itself (unmarked crosswalks at T intersections excepted, of course). By allowing motorists to park where their vehicles reduce visibility at intersections, this city traffic rule is in direct conflict with the city’s Vision Zero goals.

The fix is simple. This month Vincent Gentile revived an effort by his City Council colleague David Greenfield to have the city paint curbs so drivers don’t get tickets for parking too close to fire hydrants. If Gentile and Greenfield are as concerned about pedestrian safety as they are about protecting drivers from citations, they could introduce legislation to prohibit parking near intersections. Such a rule change would daylight intersections citywide and, if properly enforced, reduce the likelihood of collisions by making it easier for motorists and pedestrians to see each other.

Daylighted corners can be painted, protected with flex-posts, or used for bike parking. Below are examples of intersections that were made safer by the removal of a few parking spots.

]]>http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/02/27/the-new-york-city-parking-rule-that-makes-intersections-more-dangerous/feed/30Parents of Seth Kahn: Ineffective MTA Protocols Contributed to Son’s Deathhttp://www.streetsblog.org/2015/02/27/parents-of-seth-kahn-ineffective-mta-protocols-contributed-to-sons-death/
http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/02/27/parents-of-seth-kahn-ineffective-mta-protocols-contributed-to-sons-death/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:58:44 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340468[...]]]>After Wednesday’s MTA board meeting transit chief Tom Prendergast said the agency may revise bus routes to reduce the number of turns bus drivers have to make, in order to minimize conflicts between buses and pedestrians, according to the Daily News. Prendergast said another possibility would be to move crosswalks away from intersections where buses make turns, which would necessitate streetscape changes by DOT.

Seth Kahn

Whether or not these ideas pan out, it’s good that the MTA is seriously engaging in the Vision Zero discussion. Bus drivers killed eight people in crosswalks last year, and there’s no evidence that admonishing people to stay out of the way of buses will reduce crashes.

The MTA didn’t really come to the table until several bus drivers were charged under the Right of Way Law for maiming and killing pedestrians. But some City Council members want to rescind the protection to pedestrians and cyclists the law provides. Council Member Daneek Miller’s bill to exempt MTA bus drivers from the Right of Way Law has picked up 14 co-sponsors.

Driving a bus in New York City is a tough and stressful job, and most drivers do it well. That doesn’t mean crashes are an inevitable cost of doing business, or that bus drivers can’t be reckless or negligent. The Daily News and the union have taken to using the phrase “criminalizing bus drivers,” but in fact the law does not single out bus drivers and only criminalizes negligence that leads to serious injury and death. Even Daily News reporter Pete Donohue, whose column has become a platform for TWU opposition to the law, slammed the MTA for failing to keep Seth Kahn’s killer out of the driver’s seat.

Debbie and Harold Kahn shared with Streetsblog their account of what happened to their son and the driver who took his life.

Seth was 22 years old on November 4, 2009; his 23rd birthday was one month away and he was excited about plans that he had made. He was the love of our lives and our only child. Seth was always a very careful person who looked both ways when he crossed the street. As Seth was walking across the street in the crosswalk at Ninth Avenue at 53rd Street with the walk signal he was struck from behind, run over and killed by a MTA bus that was making a left hand turn from 53rd street onto Ninth Avenue.

The bus driver that hit, ran over and killed Seth was as explained to us:

It was the bus driver’s first day back on the job, since he had been previously fired for texting while driving, but the union got him reinstated with only one week of retraining. (Conversation with an MTA exec. said that they knew he was a “problem” but that they were instructed to allow him to drive again and they had no choice.) According to the New York Daily News, the driver had posted to Facebook while he was driving his bus, “Thinking about how many people I want to kill today, including myself” and “I hate these people. I want to kick the (expletive) out of them.” The driver was texting-while-driving; posting messages to Facebook and reading a newspaper all while he was sitting behind the wheel and driving a MTA bus. His driving record also included two red-light violations and a citation for “reckless operation of a bus.” The MTA did suspend the driver and take steps to fire him, but the penalties were curbed by a contract arbitrator who determined that they were too harsh. Instead the driver, was given refresher training and was back driving an express bus on November 4, 2009, which was his very first day back at work when he killed our son, Seth Kahn.

At the end of his run (his bus was “not in service”) at the time he ran over and killed Seth. He was off route without permission. He was speeding around the corner; making a left-hand turn (doing 15 mph, 10 mph above the speed that a bus is supposed to do while making a turn).

The driver’s first phone call after he ran our son over was to his union.

Two weeks after he killed Seth, the police issued a ticket to the bus driver for “failing to yield to a pedestrian,” but the ticket was thrown out due to the police officer not showing up at the hearing. Ultimately the bus driver retired on full disability (due to being stressed). He never received any form of punishment, rather being rewarded with the disability payments. We have no knowledge if he is still driving a car or anything and have never seen or met him, only seen photographs of him in the newspaper.

This man should never have been driving a bus. People that drive buses and other professional drivers should be the best drivers. They should be held to a higher standard than other people that are not professional drivers. We do not see how the MTA has their own investigation and discipline process because if they do, it is ineffective. What happened to our son should never be allowed to happen to anyone else because his #RightOfWay was taken away and the driver clearly got away with killing our child and was even rewarded for it.

Debbie and Harold Kahn

]]>http://www.streetsblog.org/2015/02/27/parents-of-seth-kahn-ineffective-mta-protocols-contributed-to-sons-death/feed/7The Enormous Promise of a Carbon Tax-and-Dividendhttp://streetsblog.net/2015/02/27/the-enormous-promise-of-a-carbon-tax-and-dividend/
http://streetsblog.net/2015/02/27/the-enormous-promise-of-a-carbon-tax-and-dividend/#commentsFri, 27 Feb 2015 16:29:09 +0000http://www.streetsblog.org/?p=340550[...]]]>Absent any foreseeable action from Washington, some states and localities are stepping up with policies that put a price on carbon. And that has a number of exciting implications for cities and sustainable transportation. California is using revenue from its cap-and-trade program, for instance, to subsidize housing near transit.

In Oregon, advocates are now pushing a carbon tax that would rebate all the money to households. Even without spending the revenue on specific goals, carbon pricing would be a huge boost for walking, biking, and transit, Michael Andersen at Bike Portland explains:

The group, called Oregon Climate, is pushing a concept called “tax and dividend”: instead of sending the proceeds into government coffers, all of the revenue collected from wholesale fossil-fuel transactions — gasoline to a distributor, coal to a power plant, and so on — would be pooled and divided evenly among Oregonians in the form of checks worth an estimated $500 to $1500 per year.

“This is the most climate-friendly progressive legislature that we’ve had, and maybe the most climate-friendly in the country right now,” Oregon Climate Executive Director Camila Thorndike said in an interview Tuesday. “States across the country have their eyes on Oregon, and we cannot let this opportunity pass by.”

Prices would rise in Oregon for concrete, gasoline, electricity and other fossil-fuel-intensive products. Dan Golden, Oregon Climate’s volunteer policy director, said Tuesday that their proposed tax of $30 per ton of carbon (increasing by $10 each year) would translate into about 27 cents per gallon of gasoline, increasing another 9 cents each year.

However, those additional costs would be offset by the checks Oregonians would receive. Oregonians with smaller-than-average carbon footprints would come out ahead, while those with larger-than-average emissions would lose — giving everyone continued incentives to cut their energy consumption.

“I’m not a transportation expert but I think if I were, I’d be really stoked about carbon pricing,” Thorndike said. “Rather than bundles of piecemeal decision-making, you’d have an economywide transition to walkable, bikeable, livable cities. … We’d have so many incentives backed financially to really build our lives and our economy around alternatives to cheap gas.”

A carbon tax would also have to overturn the Oregon constitution’s ban on spending gas tax money on anything but roads, meaning the policy would have to garner 60 percent of the popular vote. Oregon Climate is planning to take their measure to the 2016 ballot, Andersen reports.

If the campaign falls short next year, Oregon Climate says it plans to continue fighting in future elections.

Elsewhere on the Network today: Mobilizing the Region says it’s time for Connecticut to have a real discussion about tolling roads. 1000 Friends of Wisconsin reports that the state appears to be using erroneous traffic numbers to justify enormously expensive road expansions. And Human Transit explains how to find a hotel that’s transit friendly.

The vote follows months of dialogue between bike advocates and community groups, and comes on the heels of a unanimous vote supporting the plan by the CB 3 transportation committee earlier this month.

The plan, which would replace faded bike lanes with a protected bikeway alongside Sara D. Roosevelt Park, is receiving consideration now because the bumpy street is scheduled for milling and paving, offering an opportunity to refresh its layout. “We are looking to resurface the road this year, so we will come back to the community once a design is put together,” DOT Manhattan Liaison Colleen Chattergoon said at the transportation committee meeting.

“The community board has spoken,” said State Senator Daniel Squadron spokesperson Danny Weisfeld, “and it’s important for the DOT to follow up on the request.”

The last major changes on Chrystie Street came in 2008, when DOT striped bike lanes as part of an effort to improve access to the Manhattan Bridge bike path. In 2010, protected bike lanes opened on First and Second Avenues. Second Avenue feeds directly into southbound Chrystie Street.

Bicycling levels have increased rapidly since then, but Chrystie Street remains a mess. “Current conditions on Chrystie Street all but guarantee hazards for cyclists and drivers alike,” the board said in its resolution [PDF]. “Chrystie Street’s road design has not been adjusted for seven years.”

On Second Avenue, cyclists heading to Chrystie have to jump across several lanes of traffic to get in position on the west side of the street. That could be eliminated with this plan, which would place the Chrystie bikeway on the east side of the street.

A two-way bike lane should also make it safer to walk on Christie. The street’s sidewalks are crowded with people, including large numbers of children and seniors, so CB 3 is asking for pedestrian refuge islands. The request has gained the support of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition.

Transportation Alternatives volunteer Dave “Paco” Abraham thanked Squadron for working with advocates to advance the proposal. “This project could improve pedestrian crossings, park access, and provide a protected bike lane,” he said. “Sometimes you’re lucky to see just one of those things happen.”